3.4 Words & Morphemes

Warm up:

Watch this video on English morphology. Pay attention to the grammatical terms used by the speaker:

phone, phonology, phonetics, phoneme, phonetic, phonetician, phonologist, phonemic, phonological, allophone, phonetician, telephone, euphonious, phonic, telephonic, symphony

Morphemes: the smallest meaningful morphological units in words which cannot be further analyzed

Based on the number and type of morphemes contained in a word, it can be classified into one of the four types below:

1. Simple(x) Words (single free morpheme)

• In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’

2. Compound words (two free morphemes joined with or without a hyphen)

• • In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’

whenever = when (free) + ever (free)

Compounding is a common way to create a new word. It means yoking two existing words together to create a new word which is usually more complex and abstract.

Words from certain classes can be combined to form nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Sometimes the two root words are hyphenated.

As newly-formed compound words become less novel, they are less frequently hyphenated (e.g., e-mail --> email).

3. Complex Words (1 free morpheme + 1 or more derivational morphemes)

• • In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. ‘Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,’ he told me, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.’

vulnerable = vulner (? ) + able (bound) (Latin: vulnus- wound in, vulnerate- to wound)

4. Compound-complex Words (two or more free morphemes + 1 or more bound morphemes)

No example in the text excerpt.

e.g., hot-headedness = hot (free) + headed + -ness (bound)

head (free) + -ed (bound)

cold-bloodedness = cold (free) + blooded + -ness (bound)

blood (free) + -ed (bound)

To learn more about compounding, please check out this YouTube video lecture given by Prof. Birte Bos and Prof. Handke. (optional)

Practice:

Read the excerpt from The Great Gatsby and see how many types of words you can find. Enter your answers here.

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”